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"It is with great sadness and an overwhelming sense of loss that I inform you that our Home Girl,
Dr. Endesha Ida Mae 'Cat' Holland, passed away peacefully in her sleep on Wed., Jan. 25, 2006, at 11:50 p.m. (PT) at the Oceanview Convalescent Center in Santa Monica, Calif. She waged a valiant battle for many years against the debilitating effects of ataxia, a hereditary neurological disease that forced her into early retire-
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ment, wheelchairs and skilled nursing homes at the end of her journey. She appeared to be improving, then had a setback requiring emergency surgery followed by a month-long hospitalization in December. She came "home" Jan. 20, but developed serious respiratory complications within 24 hours.
"As the lights fade on the final scene, we see The Second Doctor Lady and the Third Doctor Lady—reunited at last—strollin side by side, hand in hand, talkin up a storm, WALKIN AGAIN, CHILE! and doin their 'play-like'—kickin up dust in a glorious field of Revolutionary Petunias."
Dr. Habibi Minnie Wilson
Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland, University of Southern California School of Theatre Emeritus Professor, passed away on the evening of January 25, 2006. Her story began in the 1940s in the Delta town of Greenwood, Miss., where she was known as "Cat." After being raped by a white employer on her eleventh birthday, she began to rebel openly, turning to prostitution and running into trouble with the law.
But her life changed when she wandered into the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) local headquarters in pursuit of a "John." Robert Moses of SNCC was in desperate need of help from literate local people to help bring the Civil Rights movement to Greenwood. Although a school dropout, Dr. Holland was very bright and fearless. Suddenly this "troublemaker" found herself becoming a leader in her community for the cause. After being introduced to Dr. Martin Luther King, she began to tour the North on behalf of SNCC. But in the wake of her victories as an activist, tragedy stuck. A fire-bomb tore through Holland's Greenwood home, taking the life of her beloved mother.
In 1965, Dr. Holland left the Mississippi Delta and reinvented herself yet again—this time as a scholar. Along the way to her Ph.D at the University of Minnesota, she discovered her talent as a playwright and added to her name the Swahili "Endesha," which means "she who drives herself and others forward."
From the Mississippi Delta is her published autobiography of her early years, and her widely produced play From the Mississippi Delta has been published and is licensed by Dramatic Publishing. She has written several articles on African-American subjects and published other plays. She was generous and an inspiration to many of her students and admirers. She was a great storyteller and had many more stories to tell and plays to write, but her bloodline left her with a debilitating condition of ataxia that shortened her teaching, scholarship and playwriting life. She will be missed by her sister, Sister Jean Beasley; son, Cedric; and granddaughter, Kashka, as well as many friends, former students and admirers. An archive of her work, awards and papers are part of the Givens Collection at the University of Minnesota Library.
Dr. Robert R. Scales and Suzanne Grossman Scales
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